[0:00]Since the making of this video North Korea has once again completely suspended tourism just 3 weeks after reopening. We're joined now by Mike, who is one of the first tourists to head into North Korea. British travel influencer Mike O' Kennedy. Yeah. I'm in North Korea. North Korea has stopped letting tourists into the country, just weeks after the first Western visitors were allowed back in. Authorities have not given a reason for the sun suspension. Welcome to another day in the bizarre world of North Korea. I would open the window to show you outside, but the windows are sealed shut. to stop me from escaping.
[0:54]Rason, at North Korea's northeastern tip, sits uniquely on the border of China and Russia. This gives it a major strategic edge. It controls a stretch of the Sea of Japan, something that China does not have, and it hosts the only year-round ice-free port in the entire region, something that Russia does not have. I'm heading to a monument built by Kim Jong-il to honor North Korea's bond with Russia. Unaware that I'm about to make a mistake that will cause me some pretty serious anxiety for the rest of the day. We welcome your visit. Excuse me, sir, let's go inside first, because outside is cool, so more introduction inside. So we weren't allowed to take pictures inside the main room, but it was essentially just a lot of pictures through the years of Kim Jong-il and Kim Jong-un in their various meetings with Vladimir Putin. Now, they had this visitor's book in the friendship house, and I was asked to write something. And like a freaking five-year-old on Christmas Day, I wrote, I wish nothing but peace to the world. Because that's the kind of thing you write in a visitor's book. But it's safe to say that the North Koreans didn't take it very well.
[2:13]Thank you, Mr. Moon. Thank you. I have to write peace.
[2:20]What do you think?
[2:24]Do you think it this is this is the suitable writing here? Well, I just, it's like um, It's like, I, I thought you just, It's like, because there's peace between Korea and Russia.
[2:41]Peace between countries. Because this is a friendship house. If not, we can get rid of it. So behind me is the Russian Korean North Korean Friendship House, built in 2002 after one of Kim Jong-il's meeting in Russia. He came back and he said, I order the construction of a house to represent the friendship that we have between Russia. Now, I just got in trouble because he asked me to write a umm, thing on like a visitor's book. They said, can you write a message on the visitor's book? And I said, I wish nothing but peace to the world. And they looked at each other like, do we think that's do you think that's an appropriate thing to write? And I was like, it's a friendship house. It's a friendship house. In hindsight, writing about World Peace in a country that just a day earlier staged a spectacle with children dancing before thousands of intercontinental ballistic missiles was probably a bad idea. My guides likely saw this comment as a veiled critique of North Korea, suggesting that peace doesn't exist here. Was that how they interpreted it? I have no idea. I hope not. Sorry, I guess. There was only one thing that was going to quench my anxious thirst. A massive North Korean brewery.
[4:10]This is the beer that I've been drinking the past three days and it's actually surprisingly really, really good. This beer isn't just consumed here in the DPRK. Last year, they actually exported 200,000 bottles to China and Russia. So if you go to China, you can buy North Korean beer. Machine, machine, uh they're cleaning the bottles here. It includes the process fill out the bottles. This factory is famous for making the uh, special liquor made of 100 kinds of flowers. Where are all the workers? They off today? Yeah.
[5:00]Botoms up! You should have said Dance to May. Dance to May! Dance to May! Dance to May! We're doing Dance to May? Dance to May! Chimu to me, chimu to me, chimu to me. All right. Good job. Thank you. Thank you. This is the Taekwondo Center here in uh in Rason DPRK. Taekwondo from kindergarten up until end of high school. Taekwondo is a compulsory uh lesson activity skill that has to be learned. Hi. Hi. An-nyong-ha-sim-ni-kka! An-nyong-ha-sim-ni-kka! An-nyong-ha-sim-ni-kka! An-nyong-ha-sim-ni-kka! I think for me and probably most of the people watching this, the stuff that I'm the most interested in is everything that happens in between and outside of these stops. You know, the taekwondo thing and the the beer thing and the fucking whatever else factory. I'm super interested in everything else that happens between that. What's going on outside in the farms and the outside world in the villages. Not allowed to see it. Get a little glimpse of it every now and then. And it's very, very interesting. And that's the real stuff, you know? I'm not saying that this isn't real. Of course it is. It's just tailored made.
[7:02]The people of the DPRK live under a one-party system. Every piece of news they receive about their country and the world comes from a single source. In contrast, we have thousands of sources, but with so much information, it's hard to get a balanced view. In the past decade, ad-driven algorithms have made news more polarized, tailoring coverage to specific audiences. That's where Ground News comes in. It's a website and app that pulls in thousands of news articles daily, organizing them by story. Each story comes with a breakdown of political bias, reliability, and ownership. Take this story about North Korea suspending tourism. Over 30 outlets are covering it. Ground lets you compare headlines to see how different sources frame the same event. Daily Mirror, an outlet that leans left, frames the story as Kim Jong-un mysteriously closing tourism to a specific village. On the other side, the Daily Express, a bright leaning source, frames the story more broadly as North Korea making a sudden ban. And look, Fox News did a story about me. I'm famous. Yay! One of my favorite features is their blind spot feed, which covers stories underreported by one side of the political spectrum. And it really helps me see news I wouldn't normally see on a day-to-day basis. As someone that travels to places with complex histories, I know how important it is to look at stories from different angles. Ground News helps me cut through the bullshit to see the bigger picture, so I'm not just getting one version of the truth. If you subscribe to my link in the description, you'll get 40% off their unlimited access Vantage plan, giving you access to every feature. If you want to support my reporting, subscribe to Ground News and take control of how you see the world. Ah. Considering I'm the I'm literally the first British tourist in over five years to step foot inside North Korea, the people that the the Korean guides that were with, who are part of the party, they work for the government. They're being very lenient. They are allowing me to take some videos and take pictures and and stuff like that when when there's something that you're not allowed to see. They just say they just say, no, and you just go, yep, cool. Um, you say yep, cool. You thank you to Marshall Kim Jong-un. On that note, by the way, the Kim dynasty are like gods here. They're like God. They don't say thank God, they say thank Marshall Kim Jong-un. And you have to say Marshall Kim Jong-un. You can't just say Kim Jong-un. They they're like gods, man. It's interesting. I was going to say weird. It's Saturday night. It's bitterly cold. Let's go get drunk on North Korean booze. How are you, sir? Guys, nice to meet you. So this is the Sportsman Hotel and it's where I'm going to be drinking tonight. It was the very first international hotel built here in Rason after it became a special economic zone.
[9:55]And it was built in 1998. Apparently it's pretty pretty cool place. They got a cool bar and a billiard room and all that shit. So let's have a look. These are both bars. They got double bars. One beer in each bar. What do you think? My camera's making all the lights bug out, which is really annoying, but this is a pretty cool bar, hey? Karaoke. Hello sir. Hello. Ah. So I'm going to have dinner, but then after dinner, I'm going to sit at this bar, and I'm going to try a wide range of North Korean alcohol. And we'll give our opinions on it. Thank you. How are you? An-nyong-ha-sim-ni-kka? Ah. Hi, An-nyong-ha-sim-ni-kka. Right, I don't know what that was about. Okay, I'm going to talk about food for like 30 seconds because I'm not good at talking about food. I'm only good at eating it. Overall, the food in North Korea was good, I guess. Nothing really to write home about. This was famous North Korean cold noodles, and this was like salmon with kind of like custard on it, which was pretty weird. And this was a flaming snail, which I guess is a thing. I don't know, I feel a bit weird talking about all this really, really lavish food in a country so notorious for its history of famine. Uh, yeah. Thank you so much. Thank you.
[14:01]The funny thing about this bar, it's actually impossible to uh, pour your own drink.
[14:09]Thank you. Thank you so much.
[15:15]That was a fun night. Long before North Korea became what it is today, it was a fierce defender of its people's freedom. In 1910, after just 13 years of full independence from China, Korea was annexed by Japan and turned into a colony. This sparked a wave of resistance movements across the country, with guerrilla fighters taking up arms against Japanese rule. Among them was Kim Il-sung, the grandfather of Kim Jong-un, and the founding leader of North Korea.
[15:52]Oh, fucking hell.
[15:56]This is a cave that was used by guerrilla fighters when fighting against the Japanese imperialists in 1945. Be careful. Okay. Does it does it Oh, I can see the sound of sleeping sound of beer. I'm the only hairy thing in here. Thank you, sir.
[16:34]It's a big climb. But it's an important one. Mr. Moon, my guide says, this path is has its ups and downs. It has its struggles, much like the road to revolution. After 35 years of Japanese rule, Korea was suddenly left without a government when Japan surrendered in 1945. To keep things in order, the Soviet Union took control of the North, while the U.S. took the South, splitting the country along the 38th parallel. What was supposed to be a temporary arrangement quickly turned into a Cold War standoff, leading to the Korean War in 1950. After three years of brutal fighting, the war ended in a stalemate, locking North and South Korea into the permanent divide that still exists today. It's sad that this deep divide between North and South Korea and the total isolation of North Koreans from the rest of the world is a direct result of U.S. and Soviet involvement after World War II.
[17:50]Behind me are some classic DPRK propaganda posters and they'll say, They don't have ads here, right? There's no ads for Coca-Cola and things, because they don't have that here. Instead, they have propaganda posters that will say something to inspire the people. For example, we must unite to help build the farmlands or build build the cities. And this is a main square here. These big circles are used for, uh, if it's a Marshall Kim Jong-un's birthday or or something on those lines. There'll be big choreographed dances in big circles here. This is a big um, DPRK Cinema House where they show the latest the latest blockbusters. Welcome to a totally empty souvenir shop with about 25 people working here and no customers. An-nyong-ha-sim-ni-kka. Ah, this is the rattlesnake brandy. I've got two bottles of this already, and I've got some North Korean home brand Coca-Cola. So, uh, we're going to do a little mixer later on. They got the tiger bones liquor. This is alcohol made from tiger bones. It's, uh, yeah. So, I've heard about this in China. Um, it might even be from China. Um, totally banned in in the West, of course, because it's made from fucking the bones of a tiger. So this tiger bone liquor is actually used as a medicine. Um, I've seen it in China before. They hunt and kill endangered tigers and then take the bones and use it for a medicine, which is about the most mental thing I've ever heard in my entire life. Here, another big selection of North Korean ciggis. The 727s that I bought, that I'm getting a couple of cartons of, uh, are the cigarettes that uh, General Marshall Kim Jong-un smokes. And these are the the working class versions. These are a bit more affordable. They've also got the Air Coreo cigarettes. Where are they? Um, I can't see them, but Air Coreo, which is the national airline of the DPRK, North Korea, have their own brand of cigarettes. The next stop on the big North Korean propaganda tour. A pharmacy. I'm super hung over, and this is a pharmacy, so it's not that much fun. But if you are interested in in a pharmacy in the DPRK, Vitamin B injections. Carbazochrome injections. One thing that they definitely do not have is contraception. Apparently, condoms and birth control do not exist in the in North Korea.
[21:08]This is a bottle of rattlesnake, a bottle of North Korean rattlesnake whiskey. Oh God. And I'm going to do a shot of it. Oh, I can't drink that. There's stuff. There's like mud in the lid. Oh my God. Its tongue is stuck to the end.
[21:39]I know, it's just a piece of string. Oh my God, that is a rattlesnake. Oh God, I can't believe I'm going about to drink this. Oh God.
[21:59]Oh no. There's little bits in it. What are they? If you've made it to the end of this video, in the end of this series, you deserve to see me suffer.
[22:24]That was one of the most disgusting things I've ever drank in my entire life.
[23:05]As I made my way back to China, a place so many people see as strict and oppressive, but now felt like the freest place on Earth, I couldn't help but reflect on the past four days. I only caught a small glimpse of North Korea, and that glimpse was controlled. Carefully curated to show me the best of what the country has to offer, so I cannot claim to speak to the entire country. But before coming here, I had a preconception that this was a dark place, an evil place, an oppressive place. And politics aside, what I actually saw was something different. I saw a developing country. I saw a country decades behind the rest of the world where people don't share the same freedoms that we take for granted. But I also saw people simply trying to live their lives. It's easy to paint a country with a broad brush, to define it by its government, its policies, or its place in history. But behind all of that are individuals, people with hopes, struggles, and families, just like anywhere else. And if there's one thing I'm taking away from this experience, it's that the people of North Korea are not their government. They are not the system they live under. They are just people living in a country that is so incomprehensibly different from anything you and I can imagine.
